The Adventures of a Love Investigator, 527 Naked Men & One Woman

by Silkstone, Barbara

  Does love require time – in order to survive?

  He fiddles with the creamers, placing two side by side on the white cotton tablecloth. A clip of silence hangs heavy in the air. I give him the space to adjust his thoughts.

  Rick speaks, “Men still don’t understand that honor is a big part of love – not just honoring the woman, but honoring yourself and your word. That’s why love doesn’t last – not like it used to.”

  This I hear from a man-child young enough to be my kid. We’re close to some real answers. Tread softly.

  “My mom did the best she could to tell us about people in general and how to set the guidelines. But there are lots of details you can’t see until they happen. Men have a tendency to sweet talk to get what they want. We promise the world.”

  “Tell me about guy-promises,”

  His laugh is light, angry. “What’s going on in a guy’s mind when he promises whatever? Lust. A male without refinement can’t see a woman in the proper light that she deserves to be seen in and appreciate her for her qualities. It’s just another form of greed. Because he wants sex, he’ll do anything to get it.”

  “How about guilt? Ever happen?”

  “It depends on the man. The majority of the time no, because then you have to acknowledge what you’re really doing. There are people who on the outside appear good as gold, but inside they’re beasts. When you’re dealing with an animal, they’re operating on instinct. They see something they want and they’ll do whatever they gotta do to get it. I feel women have been put in a position where they have to react to what’s coming at them.”

  I check his face, looking for the con. I can’t find it. He’s genuine.

  Rick shakes his head in a weary way. “It’s definitely men that created the climate we have because a woman can’t be herself even in today’s work force. She has to appear emotionless. People don’t understand that there’s no greater or lesser when you’re dealing with a man or a woman.”

  This young man has given me a lot to work with. I pick my words carefully. “You’re carrying a lot of who your mom is with you. Has she been able to prepare you for fatherhood?”

  He nods. “I would have to say I was prepared by my mother seventy-percent and by the streets, thirty-percent. The streets teach you intangible things. Things you’ll never see being in the home. There are certain passages and hardships. The streets have no mercy. The streets will beat the hell out of you until you stand up and be a man or a woman.”

  He goes silent. I wait until he’s ready to speak again.

  “My mother would tell me how not to get into a predicament, but I’m hard-headed. Sometimes there’s no advice on how to get out of trouble. I felt like I didn’t want to go to my mother, because she told me not to do those things in the first place. There’s no one I could turn to except my peers and they’re just as ignorant as I am.”

  I lean back in my chair, arms crossed, protecting myself from his words.

  Rick continues, thoughtful. “The streets teach you that time is precious. You never know what’s gonna happen from one minute to the next. The streets don’t teach you how to think cause you don’t really have time to think.”

  He studies my face to see if I’m following. “On the streets if a man is with a woman, they both have each other’s lives in one another’s hands. Being the way men are today, there’s certain remarks street men are gonna make towards women, that’s just the way men are. And I feel that if I’m with a woman, it’s my nature to protect her. There’s no telling how things could escalate. So I feel that when we both step outside we have to be careful how we carry ourselves. Short skirts and stuff hanging out, that doesn’t attract me, but it can attract trouble, big trouble.”

  He describes a life or death situation based on what his date is wearing. I realize I’ve been holding my breath. I exhale.

  Rick looks at me concerned that I’m shocked by what he’s revealed. “It’s okay. I just never thought about it that way before.” I speak matter-of-factly, but that’s not the way I feel.

  “A lot of single people who have goals, their time is so used up in working that they really don’t have time to get to know a person. Sometimes you just don’t want a relationship because you know it’s gonna cause problems. So you’re alone. You meet somebody and it’s perfect because they don’t know you and you don’t know them. So for that moment, it’s good.

  “If you could freeze it, you could stay in that moment forever. As that time wears on you’re gonna want to become closer to that person. You start thinking in the back of your mind, it’s not gonna last.

  “You just want to draw it up to as high a level as you can draw. Sometimes the highest level is sex, that’s as close as you can get. Two people becoming one. My current girlfriend cares about me but it’s not love. She tells me she loves me, but if you don’t love yourself, you can’t love anybody. It’s not that she does things that are self-destructive, it’s that she doesn’t see the beauty in herself.”

  “Your thinking is so clear. I don’t always get such on-target interviews.”

  He looks pleased. “It’s not that hard to figure men out. We’re very simple. We have a one-track mind. We’re not as smart as we think we are. It’s extremely easy for a woman to gently mold the man in the direction she wants him to go. Then he thinks he came up with the idea himself.”

  We sit, silent. The interview has been top notch.

  “What’s it all about, Rick?”

  “Life or love?” He smiles. “A woman would have to understand that she’s my heaven on earth. When we step outside of our home, it’s hell. So when we come home, there has to be a lot of communication and a lot of mending.”

  “But how do you mend?”

  “You try not to break in the first place. You show your woman that your word is your bond. You have to give her the security of knowing that you’re gonna do the best that you can do. At the same time, you have to be a man. No woman likes a man that she can control one hundred-percent. You have to be a man at the right time.”

  Suddenly I’m angry at getting the short end of the stick in relationships. I mumble and excuse myself, trotting to the ladies room. Am I mad at myself or the men who’ve taken up space in my life? I throw water on my face forgetting about the mascara drippings.

  I think of my first love and how much I believed in him. We were teenagers. I was Catholic and Mark was Jewish. We were torn apart by parental muscle. I was sure he was the one perfect man for me. Why didn’t he fight to keep us together? At seventeen I was strong and willful. I would have fought for him, but he gave in to his mother’s tears. I blot my face with paper towels and return to the interview.

  Back at the table Rick continues, “The natural balance is so good. A woman has the ability to console with just a touch. Women need to learn about their power over men.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I ask wondering if it applies to my lack of power over Mark.

  “Make a man prove that he’s a man. A woman does a great favor for a guy when she makes him strive to be a man.”

  Rick pulls a small red carnation from the vase on the table and hands it to me as we leave.

  Strive to be a man. I carry that phrase with me for a day and a half. I hear it in my head over the light jazz on the car radio and just before I go to sleep at night. Did Mark try to be a man in the face of his mother’s tears? I think back and recall his words. “When I come home after I’ve been on a date with you my mother’s always crying. It breaks my heart.”

  “But you’re breaking mine. If she met me she’d like me. I know it.”

  “That would make it worse. No amount of liking will overcome her only child marrying a shiksa. If you did meet her then you’d always wonder if it was something about you, personally. It’s better this way. It’ll hurt us less. I’ll never forget you. I promise.”

  I feel Mark’s presence around me. His hand on my weary shoulder, his smile to lighten my pain. Who did you grow up to be, my lo
ve?

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Men will talk to strange women. They just find it strange talking to familiar women.”

  ~ JR 48, divorced

  Case 204 / JR

  It’s one of those golden South Florida days. At JR’s suggestion, we conduct his interview in a small park near his beauty salon. We sit on the edge of an old stone bridge that crosses a timid little brook. Eighteen months have gone by since I began interviewing. I’m embarrassed I thought I could accomplish one thousand interviews in one year. I was so naïve.

  JR begins before I can set the tape. A Truman Capote character, slightly effeminate and way too dandy, he’s forty-eight and a bit overweight. He wears black slacks and a black tee-shirt. His sand-colored hair is perfectly groomed and doesn’t wilt in the humidity. Mine is hanging like wet straw. There’s something creepy about JR’s body language but I’ve been lucky so far and brush off the flash of intuition that shimmies down my backbone.

  The birds are singing and a gentle breeze is blowing. I’m feeling what I felt with James. I start to look around for an escape route. How can a park be this deserted on a weekday? I push dark thoughts from my mind and begin to tape the interview.

  JR jumps on my request that he share a vulnerable moment with a woman. Vulnerability hasn’t been an emotion easily accessed by the guys. JR has no problem unloading his story. He speaks in a rapid Carolinian drawl.

  “My ex-wife ... we had broken up. It was my fault. I walked out. And then I finagled her into letting me back into the house. My son was a little boy then and I really loved him. I wanted to get back with my family and straighten out my relationship with my wife.”

  I notice JR looking at me hungrily. Ick – I brace my right boot poised for flight just in case.

  “I got back into the house for about six months. It was bliss. Sex every night. I told my friends and clients how much I had fallen in love with my wife again.”

  I inch away from him wondering what I’m sensing below the surface.

  “One night we went to a group therapy. The therapist went around the room talking to the married couples. When he came to me, I told him how everything was wonderful. I was in hog heaven. He asked my wife how she felt. She said, ‘I want a divorce. I want out of this marriage.’ She was getting back at me. She waited until I was comfortable, until I told everyone I had fallen in love with her again. Then she dumped me... publicly.”

  He slumps and in slumping, he moves closer to me on the stone wall of the bridge. I look away as if processing what he has told me. I am, in fact, looking for other people. We are still very much alone.

  “Sorry, JR. Time has just zipped by.” I click off the recorder and stamp my boots to get the circulation back in my legs.

  JR appears frazzled. He produces a camera from his pocket. “You can’t go... until I take your picture.” The words fly from his mouth.

  “No pictures.” I don’t want this man to have my picture. Who knows what he’ll do with it.

  “One?” he pleads. There is something edgy in his voice.

  “Just one,” I answer in a low growl as the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

  “Of course.” JR works me toward a clump of trees out of view of the road. I step back onto the path. He takes my elbow and guides me near the dark side.

  This is how women get butchered. I break free and charge up the hill to the road. “The light is much better here.”

  Uncertainty flickers in his eyes. I stand poised to deliver a good kick. JR takes my picture. I yell my thanks and race to my car. He follows but I’m quicker.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Most men struggle terribly with the whole idea of sharing.”

  ~ Ben, 54, married

  Case 288 / Ben

  My right heel sticks in the snow bank. I yank my foot free and sprint for the warmth of the heated reception room. Inside, a blinding glare of bright colored carpeting, white walls and framed photos of men in jerseys accepting trophies from men in suits hits me. I squint to take in a litter of chairs. A ring of metal racks circling the room proffer pamphlets on Christian lifestyles.

  I’ve come to the corporate offices of one of the hottest sports teams in the country to interview their general manager.

  “Hi!” Ben greets me with practiced enthusiasm.

  At fifty-four, Ben has the kind of energy that sets me on edge. This sports guru wears a navy blazer with gold buttons, tan slacks and a light blue pin stripe shirt. I can’t make out the detail of his shoes, he walks too fast. He herds me double-time into his office. The room is light and bright with very few personal photos and a clean desk top. Oh boy, a clean desk. A bad sign.

  Ben opens up the interview by talking about his career. I keep easing the subject back to love and marriage. On my third try, it takes.

  He settles into his chair, leaning on his elbows. “From the time my wife was a little girl she had these wonderful visions on how marriage would be.” His gaze moves from my face to my neck and downward. Despite the glass wall extending the length of the room, I feel a little uneasy.

  “I sandwiched our wedding in between the games. I was trying to make three trades the night before the ceremony and then get the team on the road.”

  He thinks I’m impressed and smiles a photo-op smile. “Once the rings were exchanged and the marriage had taken place, I was relieved. That little piece of the jigsaw puzzle was in place.”

  I feel sorry for the pretty woman whose picture sits on the credenza behind his desk.

  “For the first ten years of our life, I thought everything was wonderful. Then my wife started to send out these little signals. I would try to deal with it, maybe an evening out or maybe some flowers or a box of candy...anything to try and keep the noise down.”

  He swings into defensive mode.

  “It’s very tough to run a team if there’s a lot of squeaking in the background.” He studies my face to see if I’m with him. “I learned to lubricate the wheels, calm it down and go on.”

  This must be the opposite of love. “You’ve been married for twenty one years?”

  He nods and shrugs it off – a bent puzzle piece.

  “One Sunday afternoon, Patty told me that she didn’t care anymore. She tried everything she could think of and that she was quitting. She didn’t say that she was leaving, but she did say that she didn’t have anything left to give. She said she had died emotionally.”

  I begin to shiver.

  “You have how many children?”

  “Nine.” He answers, proudly. “I had hoped children would give Patty the emotional food she craved. After we had our three, we adopted six more kids.”

  What would the world think of this man, this team manager if they really knew? Ben wined Patty and dined her and wooed her like a player he was trading up for. He placed her on his team and then ignored her. When she felt emotionally hungry, he would fetch another child to fill her void.

  After a long pause, he continues. “A woman has a hard time understanding. She wants her man totally engulfed in her. And the guy may be, but he has a hard time demonstrating that. A man comes home and she’s there like a little puppy dog. He can’t respond to her and she feels totally crushed.”

  This is the first interviewee I have wanted to punch. It would feel so good. With no apparent love in his heart for either his wife or his children he burdens her while making himself look like a benefactor. I consider the possibility that I’m cracking up.

  He focuses south of my face again. Is it my imagination?

  The phone bleeps and Ben excuses himself. I spend a minute making eye contact with the picture of his wife. What a crappy deal she cut.

  Ben returns from his phone call with all the verve of a game show M.C. “I’m convinced that most guys create little islands for themselves and get encamped on those islands. Men dig a moat around their island and fill it with water. There they sit. It’s a device designed for self-protection. If they can stay within the safety of those wal
ls they avoid risk taking and getting hurt or exposing themselves.”

  I open a mental image of my second ‘ex’ in his walled-up island. I would ask him how his day went and he would freeze with anger. The water must have been cold.

  Ben shuffles the few papers on his desk and realigns the pens in a straight line like little team players.

  “A wife will do anything to get over her husband’s walls and get down where her man is. The thing is ... he doesn’t want her there.”

  There is no point in asking if he would die for the woman he loved – he’s never loved a woman ... of this I am sure. Two years and four months of interviews have taught me to read men. A man like Ben is incapable of loving anyone but himself. I stand to leave.

  “Give me your cell phone number, just in case I think of anything else,” he asks.

  “Sure.” I jot my number on a piece of paper and hand it back to him.

  Ben continues talking, “I went into marriage thinking I would do what comes naturally. Well if you do what comes naturally, you’re basically going to do the self-centered thing.”

  Nauseous from his presence, I find my way back to the rental car and suck on a mint in a futile effort to kill the bad taste.

  True to his nature, Ben does the self-centered thing. He leaves four messages on my cell phone within twenty-four hours.

  I don’t respond to his calls.

  He sends a small basket of flowers to my hotel. Funny, I don’t remember telling him where I was staying.

  More messages over the course of the next three days. He must talk to me in person. I hesitate. My instincts are raw little pricks. He persists. He says he has a list of men wishing to be interviewed by me. The list is confidential. “It must be delivered in person,” he says.

  This whole episode reminds me of when I was six years old, and I met a strange man in the hallway of our apartment building. He was selling bibles and his penis was hanging out of his zipper. I was sure he had forgotten to put it back in. I should have told him, but I didn’t want to embarrass him. Somehow, I was sure it was my fault he was exposing himself.